Monthly Archives: September 2008

I now have all 3 base cards from 1981 for my Dave Winfield collection. This 1981 Fleer card reminds me of a Little League pose. Thinking back to my playing days as a child, I remember posing just like this in the front row of my team’s picture. The only difference is that when Winfield was 9 years old he was probably closing in on being 6 feet tall and 150 pounds while I was barely 5 feet tall and 100 pounds soaking wet!!

How many times do you think Dave Winfield got intentionally walked during Little League?? LOL!!!

You’ve got to love the ‘old-school’ Padres uniform that Dave is wearing proudly…

This time, I thought it would be interesting to see who people would select if they were building the perfect example of a ‘5-Tool Player’ using stars from the 1980’s.

The 80’s certainly had it’s share of excellent players and many fit the mold of what you would want from a player of this caliber. But to create the best example of a ‘5-Tool Player’ you must pick 5 players; each with that 1 skill that made them stand heads and shoulders above the rest.

Same rules as before – if you pick a player for 1 category you cannot use him again for another one.

Here is my ‘robot’ using players strictly from the 1980’s…

Hitter for Power – Mike Schmidt

Hitter for Average – Wade Boggs

Base Running Ability – Rickey Henderson

Defensive Presence – Ozzie Smith

Arm Power and Accuracy – Andre Dawson

So, let me know which 5 players from the 1980’s you would use to develop the ultimate ‘5-tool’ player.

Of the 9 players I chose, 2 have responded and 1 of the 2 was successful. Both Alan Trammell and Barry Larkin returned my card to me quickly. The difference being that Larkin actually singed my card while Trammell returned it unsigned.

I don’t know if 1 autograph in a month is good or not. I also don’t know how much fan mail a guy like Don Mattingly or Andre Dawson still gets years after their playing days are over.

What I do know is that I love the Barry Larkin signed card I received and am very proud to own it. I enjoyed watching Larkin play during his career with the Reds and appreciate him a little more now knowing that he responds quickly to his fans.

I’m asking anyone out there that has sent autograph requests through the mail… what kind of time frame should I expect? when do you just write it off and consider it a failure? do certain letters appeal to these players more than others?

Let me know your thoughts. In the meantime, I will continue to get excited as I pull up to my house hoping that my mailbox contains another card signed by one of these great players from the 1980’s.

On this day in 1992 you recorded your 3,000th career hit as a major league baseball player.

This baseball milestone was accomplished during your 20th season in the major leagues in which you played for just 1 team – The Kansas City Royals. After completing your 21st season, you ended your career with an amazing 3,154 hits which is good for 15th all-time.

The amazing part of this career achievement is that Brett never showed signs of decline as a hitter during his lengthy career. While averaging 150 hits per year over his 21 year career, Brett remained extremely consistent. The total number of hits during his last year in 1993 was 149.

I just grabbed 4 of these cards for a quarter!!! You would think that of all of the pictures Topps has of Andre Dawson in a Montreal Expos uniform that they would have chosen a better shot to use. I am not a big fan of the 1986 design, and this picture of ‘The Hawk’ doesn’t help my opinion of this issue from Topps.

I already owned the 1983 Topps card, but again I can scratch the base cards of Dawson for 1983 off of my ‘Need to Get’ list.

The Topps card from this set stands out and is one of my favorite issues of all time. But the Donruss card is very nice too. Although the Donruss product was not terribly exciting in the early 1980’s, the Dawson cards they issued are strong. And again, Fleer pulls up the rear with a card that couldn’t excite a hyper-active child…